


All Tied Up

by MyNameIsThunder



Series: Council of Serpents [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Third Person, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23215105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyNameIsThunder/pseuds/MyNameIsThunder
Summary: Blaise is determined to find out why the entrance to the Slytherin common room is acting up all of a sudden. Draco is determined to keep it a secret.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Council of Serpents [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685098
Comments: 88
Kudos: 1013





	All Tied Up

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea for this while writing my other fanfic and now that I'm finished with that, I could finally get to work on this oneshot.  
> What can I say, I just love secret relationship stories :)  
> This was written as a one-shot, so you can totally read this without having read the prequel (which is still a WIP at this point).  
> I hope you like it!

“The Council of Serpents is officially in session.”

Next to the fireplace, Blaise banged his gavel on an old copy of Defensive Magical Theory. He looked around the common room to check that all eyes were on him.

“Where did he _get_ that thing?” Draco asked Pansy, not even trying to keep his voice down. Blaise gave him a hard look that Draco countered with a sweet smile.

Pansy didn't even look up. She was deeply focused on painting her nails with dark green polish. “Don't know. But I know where he can stick it.”

“Hey Zabini,” shouted someone from the back. “Who _died_ and made you Head of the Council?”

“Marcus Flint.” Blaise banged his gavel again. “ _Silence_!”

Silence did indeed fall, though it wasn't out of respect for Blaise. The same thing always happened whenever somebody mentioned one of their house members who had died in May.

Draco, who thought it was a bit much, leaned over to inspect Pansy's nails and then pointed at the hand that was holding the brush. “You smudged it there.”

Pansy turned her hand to look at her left little finger. “Motherf-”

“ _Sh!_ ” Some fourth-year hissed. “Show some respect.”

Pansy laughed. “Oh, Darling. None of us ever liked Flint. We're not going to start pretending now.”

The group of first-years started whispering at once. Blaise banged his gavel a third time.

“Order.” He pointed his gavel at the fourth-year. “First of all, Reed, we don't do the whole 'moment of silence' thing for people who died fighting on the wrong side of the war. Not good for our already lousy reputation.”

People started whispering amongst themselves immediately, but quickly fell silent when Blaise raised his gavel again.

“Second of all: let's get to the point of this meeting.”

Draco sighed and checked the time. Quarter to eleven already. He really should have known something was up when Blaise had rounded up the first- and second-years in their pyjamas.

“Is this going to take long, Blaise?” The gavel was now pointed at him accusingly. Draco raised an eyebrow. “It's rude to point your naked gavel at decent people.”

Blaise shook his gavel, as if to strengthen the pointing. “Silence, Malfoy.”

Draco raised his second eyebrow at being addressed like this.

“It's going to take as long as it takes.” Blaise held eye contact. “ _Why_? Do you have somewhere to be this late?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “I don't fancy staring at your face all evening, _Zabini_.”

On the leather couch next to theirs, a group of fifth-years sighed simultaneously and then broke into giggles. They definitely _wouldn’t_ mind.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

“Order! This is a serious matter.” Blaise gave him a stern look. “Draco, you can go if you don't want to participate in the Council. It's only one of our most _sacred_ Slytherin traditions.”

“Excellent.” Draco stood up at once and made his way over to the exit.

The first-years gaped at him, open-mouthed. “Is he allowed to do that?” one of them breathed. Draco doubted that it had anything to do with him breaking curfew and everything with him breaking traditions.

“Focus on _me,_ please,” Blaise said firmly. “Now, I've called a Council meeting to talk about the recent haunting of our common room.”

All heads whipped around to face Blaise at once. Draco stopped with one hand already on the entrance wall. The first-years were holding hands now.

“The _what_ now?” said Draco.

“Have a _seat_ , Draco,” said Blaise loftily.

Sighing, Draco reclaimed his place next to Pansy, who held out her finished nails for him to assess. He pointed out a spot she had missed and then leaned back.

“Alright, now that we are all _here_ ,” Blaise gave Draco another look and then pointed his gavel at one of the giggly fifth-year girls. “Candace, tell them what you saw.”

One of the girls leapt to her feet and nearly stumbled over them on her way to the front. The gathered Slytherins snickered. All of her friends made various concerned sounds of _'Oooh'_ and _'Aaaah'_ , but Draco saw one of them sneak her wand back into her sleeve. Candace straightened, beet red, and turned to glare at her friends. It seemed like she wanted to say something, but then Pansy cleared her throat and she flinched slightly instead.

“Right. So, there's something wrong with our entrance wall.”

Draco exchanged eye-rolls with Pansy. Every year, there were some geniuses who got the walls confused, spent an obscene amount of time shouting the password at a completely ordinary one and then convinced themselves that there must be something wrong with it rather than admit their mistake out loud. Usually this happened to the first-years, though.

Candace lifted her chin up and continued. “Last night, around half past one, the wall opened on its own while we were sitting here by the fire. Nobody was anywhere near it. Nobody came in.”

Draco shifted and Pansy's eyes were on him immediately. “What were you doing up that late?” he asked suspiciously.

Candace glared at him. “We were ... talking. What does it _matter_ what we were doing?”

“Probably drunk,” Draco stage-whispered at Pansy, who grinned wickedly.

“We were not drinking,” hissed Candace.

Pansy laughed loudly. “Oh, _please_ , Candace. Everybody knows your Raven _bore_ boyfriend broke up with you yesterday.”

“Well, I don't see _you_ kissing anyone, so maybe watch your mouth, Parkinson.”

Now the girl who had tripped Candace spoke up. “We saw what we saw. The wall opened.”

“ _Sure_ ,” said Pansy mockingly. She pointed a dark green finger at the wall. “A thousand years without a hitch, but now it decides to act up all of a sudden?”

Several of the girls opened their mouths at once, when suddenly the wall slid open, revealing – absolutely no one. They all stared at it in silence for a few seconds.

“ _See?_ ” Candace sounded a little hysterical. Not even Pansy had a response.

The wall closed again, rousing them from their stupor.

“Well,” said Draco, casting around for a satisfying explanation. “Maybe it got damaged during the battle?”

The first-years nodded immediately, desperate for an explanation, but Blaise spoke up. “The battle didn't reach the dungeons.”

“Fine,” said Draco. “Then maybe it’s a prank? Somebody gives the password and then bails to mess with us?”

Blaise's eyes narrowed. “All of us are _here_ , so it would have to be an outsider.” He looked around, fixing every single one of them with a stern look. “It goes against our code to give out the password. If anybody let it slip, he or she better come forward _now_.”

Nobody said anything and Draco looked at his watch again. Just after eleven. He sighed and cast a longing gaze over to the staircase that led down into the eight-years' boys’ dormitories.

“Well, looks like nobody is going to confess anytime soon,” said Draco in his most bored voice. “If that's all, I'm going to bed.”

“Fine,” said Blaise cooly. “You all get the night to think about this. Whoever might have heard anything at all can tell me in private. I'll post the new password on the noticeboard, so check that before going to breakfast tomorrow morning. That concludes this Council meeting.”

The younger Slytherins rushed off at once, apparently eager to put some distance between themselves and 'the haunting'. Draco stretched lazily and then went down at a more reasonable pace. He took his time brushing his teeth and switching into his pyjama bottoms. He considered the top for a moment, but what was the point, really?

The dorm was silent when he finally made it there. Blaise and Theo were still upstairs, probably discussing password safety. Goyle hadn't returned for NEWTs, no surprise there. Crabbe was fucking _dead_ , the maniac. Good riddance.

Draco's curtains were drawn and he barely opened them to slip into bed, holding his breath and listening.

The mattress was warm and somebody was breathing beside him.

“What the fuck was _that_?”

Draco grinned at the canopy. Something warm touched his bare chest and then the bed dipped on either side of him. Warm peppermint breath brushed against his lips.

“Emergency meeting of the ‘ _Council of Serpents’_.” Draco made air quotes. “Your fault, by the way.”

Draco raised his hands until he found him, one hand slipping beneath the Cloak and vanishing, the other settling at the back of his hooded head. Warm lips met, but only for a second.

“So that one blubbering girl _did_ notice me last night?”

Draco nodded and pulled him down again to steal another kiss. “You could have warned me, you know?”

He could feel the other pair of lips twitch against his. They barely broke away to say, “Nah. Better things to do.”

Now Draco was grinning too. He seized hold of his invisible visitor’s waist and neck and turned them around. The Cloak fell open at the front, and Draco looked down at half of Harry, hair a mess and eyes shining in the bit of greenish moonlight that managed to make its way through the lake and curtains.

They looked at each other for a second, taking it all in. As if on cue, they both reached for each other, meeting halfway, and then the Cloak was gone completely and Draco was wrenching Harry’s t-shirt over his head.

Draco dropped down on top of him, kissing him properly at first and then kissing and licking along his jaw and throat, while Harry slung a leg across his waist and touched every inch of him that he could reach.

~o~

In the morning, there was a note on the notice board, right next to the new password.

_‘Fellow Slytherins,_

_As of now, it is unsure what exactly is happening to our entrance wall. Next to this note, you’ll find a list. I expect everyone to monitor the wall closely and, should the incident repeat itself, write down the date and time of the sighting. Please use the blank space to note anything out of the ordinary._

_Blaise Zabini, Head of the Council of Serpents’_

The list contained two lines. The first was written in neat, loopy hand-writing and read _‘Saturday, February 6 th 1999, 1.30 am – entrance wall opened of its own, nobody entered or exited’_.

The second was by Blaise: ‘ _Saturday, February 6 th 1999, 10.58 pm – see above, all Slytherins present in common room at the time’._

Draco wasn’t particularly worried. Harry had his Cloak and nobody seemed to have seen him leave at quarter past two. They’d just have to be a bit more careful from now on.

~o~

For two weeks, everything went smoothly. Harry came by twice, both on Wednesdays after the Gryffindors' Quidditch practice, and the Slytherin common room was empty each time.

But when Draco checked the notice board on the morning of the second Thursday, there was another entry.

_‘Thursday, February 18 th 1999, 12.15 am – wall opened, nobody in sight.’_

Draco sighed and went to breakfast. So much about discretion. This was starting to be a nuisance.

~o~

Harry had promised to check his map to see if the common room was empty before coming in on Saturday night, so Draco was lying on the common room couch, waiting for him. He really had no desire to wait until the dead of night and was pleasantly surprised when the last of his house mates cleared out around half to midnight.

Fifteen minutes later, the wall opened. Draco had only just gotten to his feet, when somebody spoke behind, making him jump, “That’s strange.”

Heart racing, Draco turned around to find Blaise lurking in front of the boys’ dormitories.

“Fucking hell, Blaise,” muttered Draco, hand pressed against his chest. “How long have you been standing there?”

“About two hours, give or take a few minutes.” Blaise shrugged and came to stand beside him, watching as the door slid shut. He seemed puzzled. “It’s not another student. I changed the password after the last of us came back. Nobody knows it but me.”

“I …” Draco couldn’t help but gape at him. “Then _how_ …”

“That’s what I want to know. Not so indifferent now, are you?” Blaise smirked at him and Draco could tell he liked proving Draco wrong, even if it meant that he was no closer to getting to the bottom of it all.

Draco just shook his head, momentarily lost for words. How had Harry opened the wall? When something touched his arm, he nearly jumped.

“I’m going to bed,” muttered Draco.

Blaise barely listened. He was already striding over to the wall and examining it, shining his Lumos at every crack and crevice. Well, at least Draco would be able to smuggle Harry into his bed without trouble. Blaise seemed like he would be occupied for a while.

The question burst out of Draco the second the curtains were drawn and his charms were in place. “ _How_ the fuck did you get in?”

Harry took off his Cloak. There was a massive grin on his face and Draco could tell that he had been dying to get asked. “Guess Slytherin never considered that somebody who could speak Parsel wouldn’t belong to his house.”

Draco kissed the stupid grin off his face.

~o~

There were no new list entries for the whole week. Draco would’ve thought that this would reassure people, but the Slytherins seemed to be more and more on edge the more time passed.

Already there were stories going around about a Poltergeist that had chosen the dungeons to haunt. Draco had heard one of the third-years tell a first-year that it could be Flint, who wanted to reclaim his place as Head of Council. Others were suspecting the Bloody Baron.

~o~

On Friday evening, Draco nearly had a heart attack when he returned from Quidditch practice. He went down the hidden corridor, heading for the entrance wall, when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He drew his wand immediately, pointing it at the patch of wall to his right.

“Easy there, tiger,” said a voice, and then the disillusionment charm dropped.

Draco tried to get his hammering heart back under control even as he put away his wand. “Blaise! What the fuck are you doing?”

“Guarding the entrance. The first two sightings happened on a Friday night. I’m going to see if I can catch whatever is doing it.”

“By lurking in the hallway for hours?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Draco shook his head, giving Blaise a very judging look in the hope of dissuading him. “And if it’s the Baron? You know he can turn invisible if he wants to, right?”

But Blaise just shrugged. “Guess I’ll have to wait and see.”

Still shaking his head, Draco gave the password and left Blaise to his empty corridor. He’d just have to hope that he would give up before midnight, when Harry was supposed to come.

Draco decided not to leave it to chance. Directly after showering, he gathered some of his homework and made himself comfortable on one of the leather couches. He even made some progress the first two hours, but he grew slightly nervous when half past ten rolled around and Blaise had still not returned. Also, Candace and her girls were still giggling over at the fireplace.

Sighing, Draco turned a page and then nearly dropped the book when the wall slid open suddenly.

“ _Homenum Revelio_ ,” yelled Blaise, and a wave of magic washed over them. “ _Hah!_ ” made Blaise, excitement heavy in his voice. “There’s someone there! Quick, Draco!”

The wall slid closed before Draco could do so much as blink, and Blaise stood in front of it, wand raised. Draco sat up slowly, trying to seem as uninterested as possible, which was nearly ruined when two strong, invisible hands were placed on his shoulders.

“What exactly am I supposed to be doing?”

The girls were screeching at each other, huddled in a dense crowd for protection. Blaise’s eyes were darting in every direction, searching for any kind of movement. Truth be told, he looked slightly mad. “Catch the intruder!”

“Sure,” drawled Draco. “Do you want me to start throwing hexes at random?”

“ _Homenum –_ ” started Blaise, but at the same time, one of the hands lifted from Draco’s shoulders and a door opened and then slammed shut at the other end of the common room.

Blaise crossed the room in an instant and wrenched the door open, yelling, “They’re in the girls’ dormitory!” before walking straight into the invisible wall that went up every time a male tried to enter.

Draco let out a sharp laugh. Both hands were back on his shoulders, and they were shaking with supressed laughter too.

“Guess that means it’s a girl,” said Draco as he gathered up his things and made his way over to the boys’ dormitories. “Good luck with that.”

He paused at the door, holding it for open for Harry and pretending to watch as Pansy came strutting up the stairs from her dorm. Then he went to follow him, before they could rope him into organising a search party.

“Maybe we should start meeting somewhere else,” said Harry when Draco drew the curtains shut behind them and cast a sound-blocking charm.

“Sure,” said Draco, grinning. “Want to lend me your Cloak and do it in _your_ dorm, with all your little lion friends sleeping a few feet away?”

“Ugh,” made Harry. Draco couldn’t see his face, because he was currently pulling the jumper over his head, but he could imagine the disgust on his face. “Pass.”

“How about an empty classroom, then?” Draco busied himself with unbuttoning Harry’s shirt. “Maybe Peeves could come by and cheer us on.”

“Right, fine,” said Harry, and then he grabbed Draco by the shoulders and pushed him onto the bed, sitting down on top of him and fixing him with blazing eyes. “Let’s just keep doing it in this snake den, then.”

~o~

Somebody shook Draco awake at an entirely unreasonable hour. He groaned loudly and dragged the blanket over his head, trying desperately to keep out the sunlight. He felt like he’d gone to sleep just an hour ago. Actually, he wouldn’t even be surprised if that were true. Harry had only slipped out at quarter to five, half an hour after Blaise had _finally_ gone to bed.

“Get up.” Theo continued to shake him relentlessly. “Blaise has called another Council meeting. You’re the only one still missing.”

Draco pulled the blanket away again and chanced a look at his clock. It was just before seven. He groaned again, but it did nothing to ease the pounding inside his head. “What time does he call this?”

Theo just shrugged. “He said one of the girls found some evidence. Didn’t want to tell me, though. Said it would ruin the element of surprise.”

The sleepy fog inside Draco’s skull dissipated instantly, but the headache picked up. “Evidence?”

“I don’t know, man. Get a move on so we can find out.”

It only took Draco a minute to splash some water at his face, arrange his hair a little more neatly and put on his dressing gown.

The assembled Slytherins didn’t look much better than him. Some of the younger ones, who were sitting on the floor, kept nodding off against each other. Pansy was using the down time to apply her make up with the help of a small mirror, which was floating in front of her.

Draco sat down on the arm rest next to her, and Blaise banged his gavel immediately, making all of them jump and some groan in protest.

“I’ll come right to the point,” said Blaise in his most stern voice. “ _Somebody_ here is shagging a Gryffindor.”

Something very cold and very heavy dropped in Draco’s stomach. This was a good thing, because his head felt like it was filled with nothing but air, and he’d have worried he might float away otherwise.

Several people gasped in shock. The third-years broke into nervous giggles, probably because of Blaise’s choice of words. Candace and her girl friends immediately started whispering amongst themselves.

“Come off it, Blaise,” said Pansy, not even looking away from her own reflection. “Nobody here is sneaking Gryffindors into their dormitory.”

“Explain this, then.”

Blaise put a hand into his pocket and pulled something out of it, something red and gold. Something that looked an awful lot like Harry’s –

“Is that a Gryffindor tie?” Pansy’s mirror dropped to the floor and shattered dramatically.

The common room fell silent at once.

“That’s exactly what it is,” said Blaise, shaking it through the air. “Candace found it near the notice board this morning. Someone came in last night, invisible. We know for certain that they were human.”

“And a female,” supplied Draco helpfully, proud that his voice was not shaking even a little bit. “She went into the girls’ dormitory.”

But Pansy shook her head. “We searched all of them. Nobody was in there. We think they just slammed the door to set us on the wrong track. We spent all night in the common room to try and catch them, but the wall stayed closed.”

“But why did we find _this_ ,” Blaise shook the tie again, “only now? They must’ve stayed in here all night, waiting for us to give up.”

Pansy got to her feet, looking around, her dark red lips pursed. “Alright, whoever is having it off with one of _them_ better fess up right now. And they’d _better_ explain how exactly that Gryffindor nuisance got in without a password or there will be hexes.”

“Yeah, right,” said Candace pointedly. “Is that your way of distracting from yourself?”

And the rest of the morning was spent accusing one another, though nobody at all thought once to look at Draco. He was too relieved to be offended.

~o~

When Draco woke up on the first Sunday morning in April, he felt pleasantly warm and comfortable. Sunlight was tickling his face through a gap in his curtains and warm arms were slung around him from behind. Draco breathed out contently and snuggled up closer until his entire back was pressed against Harry’s chest. He felt him move slightly, and then soft lips pressed lazy kisses against Draco’s neck and shoulder. Something stirred inside Draco, and he –

 _“FUCK!”_ Draco lunged forward and pulled the curtains shut forcefully. There was the sound of fabric ripping, but Draco ignored it in favour of turning around to stare at a startled Harry.

“You’re still here! It’s morning!”

Harry’s eyes widened and he sat up at once. “ _Shit, shit, shit,_ ” he muttered to himself, scrambling across the bed to gather up his clothes. Heart hammering in his chest, Draco watched as Harry’s shadowy form wriggled into his pants and trousers and then struggled so much with the buttons of his shirt that Draco had to lean over and slap his hands away so he could do it for him.

“Sorry,” Harry whispered, “It’s just so dark. Where’s my tie?”

“Don’t know,” Draco whispered back, even though his spells should still be up. “Make a light.”

Harry leaned across him to retrieve his wand and Invisibility Cloak from under the pillow, but before he could cast a Lumos, Draco’s hands happened across a long, silky thing near his left foot, and he slung it around Harry’s neck and tied it for him with practised hands.

“So you don’t lose it again,” whispered Draco, only a little bit of accusation in his voice. “I’ll let you out of the dorm and then you can slip out when one of the others leaves the common room.”

Harry kissed him quickly. When Draco opened his eyes again, he had vanished underneath the Cloak. Still thrumming with adrenalin, Draco put on his own pants, which were somewhere at the foot of the bed, and then opened his curtains.

Theo’s curtains were still drawn, but Blaise’s bed was empty. Draco’s stomach did a somersault, but then he realised that there was no way that Blaise could have seen something through the gap in his curtains and not made a scene right then and there.

Draco gathered up his dressing gown from the top of his trunk and then sneaked upstairs. He opened the door into the common room and pretended to look around while Harry slipped past him. Candace and one of her friends were looking up at him from their chairs at the fireplace.

“Does anybody know if Blaise is already at breakfast?” he asked to allay suspicion.

“Yeah,” said the other girl. “We saw him leave fifteen minutes ago.”

Draco nodded and closed the door on them again. The rest was in Harry’s hands now.

~o~

Draco was irritated. He had showered and dressed in peace, determined to get his racing heart back under control. And now, twenty minutes later, he was sitting in the middle of his bed and all his bedclothes were lying on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

Draco turned around to look at Theo, who had finally opened his curtains and was watching him curiously.

Draco sighed and resumed sifting through his bedding. “Can’t find my tie. I swear, if Blaise took it again, I’m going to hex him.”

Theo grinned, apparently not averse to the idea of watching that. He turned over onto his back and stretched. “Maybe check underneath your bed first. You know how he gets when he’s hexed without having done something despicable to deserve it.”

“Reasonable,” said Draco.

He flopped onto his stomach and leaned over the edge of his bed, waiting for something green and silver to catch his eye. There was nothing underneath there. Draco ruffled his curtains half-heartedly, in case his tie had gotten caught up between them and the bed, but there was nothing silver there either.

Something red and gold dropped to the floor instead.

It felt like somebody had just thrown him into the lake headfirst. His whole body turned ice cold and then impossibly hot immediately afterwards. Laying on his stomach like this, with his head angled down, he felt like throwing up any second now.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Draco whispered.

“What’s that?” asked Theo and Draco snatched up the tie in a flash, stuffing it underneath his mattress.

“It’s not there either,” said Draco, trying for some semblance of his usual contained self. “Guess I’ll have to hex Blaise. Any suggestions?”

He was clinging to the possibility that Harry had decided to go up to his common room before breakfast, even if he already was fully dressed and the Great Hall was on his way up. Maybe he had noticed the mix-up and already switched his tie. It was possible. _Right_?

“Hm,” made Theo thoughtfully. “I quite like _Tarantallegra_. You could do it right outside the Great Hall after breakfast.”

“Great,” said Draco distractedly, now searching his trunk for his back-up tie. “Let’s go up before he leaves.”

Draco had to find out right now. The suspense was killing him.

~o~

The Great Hall was already packed with students, and Draco’s eyes immediately found the Gryffindor table, which was almost completely full as well, but not in any particular uproar. Hope blossomed inside him as Draco searched the rows of students, following Theo towards their own table almost blindly.

A long breath, which he had definitely known he was holding, left him when he finally found Granger and Weasley, and no Harry beside them. Thank Merlin for small mercies.

Feeling immensely relieved, Draco sat down beside Theo and across Blaise, which had the upside of allowing him a perfect view of the Gryffindor table. Theo had chosen that spot, not him.

As Draco poured himself some juice and then made a platter of rolls float over so he could grab two, he thought about a strategy to hex Blaise later. He hadn’t stolen Draco’s tie, but _Theo_ didn’t know that, so he would have to hex Blaise anyway. Maybe he could get his tie back from Harry and plant it somewhere between Blaise’s things to prevent retaliation. All of Draco’s ties were monogrammed at the bottom, so it could work.

“The Golden Trio is up to something again,” said Pansy in her most gossipy voice as she sat down beside Blaise ten minutes later. “Look at them whispering their precious little secrets.”

Draco looked up immediately.

Even from the other end of the room, Draco could see that Weasley was completely red in the face. He was talking rapidly at Harry, who was sitting with his back towards the rest of the Great Hall. Granger said something and then looked up sharply.

Right at their table.

Granger was scanning the Slytherin table from one end to the other and Draco hastily looked back down at his roll, which was a little squished. He dropped it onto his plate and tried to keep calm as he leaned across Theo to grab some butter.

So _maybe_ his friends had noticed that Harry hadn’t slept in his own bed last night. So _maybe_ Granger had her suspicions. That didn’t mean they were on to them, right?

Draco chanced another glance at the table. Granger was looking somewhere to his left by now, apparently having scrutinised him already. That was good, wasn’t it? It had to be.

What _wasn’t_ good was the rise in noise level at the Gryffindor table. Harry was clasping his neck all of a sudden, hands wrapped around his throat so that his arms would be brought together at the front, and that was _definitely_ bad.

Heads were brought together all along the Gryffindor table, and students at the other three tables were starting to take notice of the buzzing noise. Then Parvati Patil got up suddenly, whispered something at some Hufflepuffs in passing and finally dropped down next to her sister at the Ravenclaw table.

All over the Great Hall, people were turning around to look at the Slytherin table. Oh Merlin. The noise was deafening by now, and Draco could barely understand Pansy as she said something that sounded vaguely like, “What the fuck is going on?”

“Let’s find out,” said Blaise and then he and Pansy got to their feet and went over to the Ravenclaws while Draco was glued to his chair, unable to comprehend what the hell was going on and if he _should_ be worried after all.

As soon as the two Slytherins were on their feet, Granger and Weasley shot up as well. They rounded the table hastily and dragged Harry to his feet, who was still clasping his neck. His friends got on either side of him and escorted him out of the Great Hall, apparently trying to shield him from views.

It was no use. Draco had seen it, and by the way Theo leaned in, he knew that he wasn’t the only one.

“So,” muttered Theo into his ear. “I guess it wasn’t Blaise after all, huh?”

Draco didn’t turn to look at him. His face felt impossibly hot and he tried to control the rapid beating of his heart. Blaise and Pansy were apparently arguing now, and that definitely spelled trouble.

“Name your terms,” muttered Draco in defeat as Blaise finally turned around to face their table again.

Blaise planted himself at the middle of their table and shouted, “We meet in the common room right now!”

Pansy looked after him as he strode away. She dropped down on the bench, a gleeful look on her face, and everybody in the vicinity immediately leaned in.

“It’s Potter,” she said, looking close to bursting in excitement. “Potter is fucking a Slytherin.”

~o~

Draco was on his way to the library when somebody grabbed his arm and dragged him into an empty class room.

The door snapped shut and Draco straightened his robes, waiting until Harry’s head appeared out of thin air. They looked at each other for a second, not saying anything.

“So …” said Harry after all. “That happened.”

“I _saw_ it happen,” said Draco cautiously, dropping his book bag onto a desk. “My question is: _Why_ did it happen? Don’t you look into the mirror once in a while? None of the Gryffindors noticed before you went down?”

“I didn’t go up to our dorm,” said Harry, grimacing. “It took forever until someone left your common room. So, when I finally got out, I decided to go the library and backtrack from there. You know, pretend I was there the whole time, in case Ron noticed I wasn’t in bed this morning.”

Draco didn’t say anything. That sounded actually reasonable, and he was searching for a way to make this Harry’s fault somehow. Problem was, _he_ had handed Harry his tie, hadn’t he? He had even tied it.

Harry sighed and continued. “Hermione immediately noticed, of course. And then Ron was trying to make me tell him who it is, and people started to notice too and yeah … You saw it.”

“Well,” said Draco. “If it’s any help, the _‘Council of Serpents’_ is only suspecting the girls right now. Though you’ll be surprised to hear that none of them are outright denying shagging you. They’re acting all mysterious, saying they’re _not_ and then dropping hints that suggest they _are_.”

“Great,” said Harry. He was coming nearer now, crowding Draco against the desk with his strong, invisible body. “Well, seeing as I probably won’t go down there for quite a while …”

Then his hot mouth was on Draco’s, and he was pushed onto his back. They kissed for a while, but the surface was unyielding underneath him and there already was a crick in his neck, and then he recognised the room as the Transfiguration class room and his thoughts were filled with entirely unwelcome images of McGonagall, which certainly didn’t help matters along.

The weight on his body vanished suddenly as did Harry’s lips on his. “What’s wrong?”

Draco shook his head and then gestured around. “This doesn’t exactly set the mood, does it?”

Harry sighed and ruffled his hair absentmindedly. “Then where else are we supposed to go?”

Shrugging, Draco sat up. “There’s always my bed, I guess.”

An eye-roll was everything Draco got, so he straightened his clothes and waited for a proper answer, which finally came a few seconds later. “People are going to talk. Is a bit of privacy really too much to ask for?”

“People are _already_ talking about your illicit love affair,” said Draco pointedly, picking up his bag. “I’ve got to go. I have two Transfig essays to write.”

Harry frowned. “Wait, we’ve got homework?” His eyebrows drew together even more. “Wait, why _two_?”

“Seems like I’ll be doing Theo’s homework for the next two weeks. Also, get a homework planner.”

“I’ve got one,” muttered Harry, still frowning. “So, Theo’s blackmailing you?”

Draco clicked his tongue in confirmation. “He _knows_ I couldn’t find my tie this morning.”

“ _Perfect_.” Harry sighed and dragged the hood back over his head.

“Let me know what you decide,” said Draco, opening the door. Then he added as an afterthought, “I don’t care either way.”

So what if that was a lie?

~o~

By the end of the week, Harry had three different Slytherin girlfriends, depending on who you asked, and Draco hadn’t been alone with him once.

People seemed to follow Harry wherever he went, determined to unmask his secret girlfriend. And when nobody could find him, everybody seemed to be watching the Slytherins to see which one of them was absent as well. This caused his alleged girlfriends to make themselves increasingly scarce to maintain their image and Draco to make himself as visible as possible.

In the meantime, students from the remaining houses had started placing bets on the identity of Harry’s girlfriend.

Whenever Draco caught a glimpse of him, Harry seemed close to his boiling point. Draco wasn’t exactly thrilled either. He barely got any free time now, with double the load of homework, which he had to phrase differently enough that it wouldn’t be apparent that Theo hadn’t done his own.

~o~

“So.”

Draco knocked over his ink bottle, which spilled half of its content all over Theo’s Defence essay before Harry righted the bottle. Swearing under his breath (and earning himself an appalled look by Pince), Draco used his wand to siphon the parchment clean, but a blueish tinge remained.

He looked up at Harry, who had just sat down across from him, even though there still was a whole empty table further away.

“Potter,” Draco said drily. “Thanks for that. Now I’ll have to write all of it again. A third time.”

“No, you don’t. Nott can do his own homework.”

Harry was grinning his crooked grin at him – the one he never gave him in public for the very same reason why they never sat at the same table or exchanged more than one sentence at a time.

People were already starting to take notice, glancing at them over the tops of their books.

“Can he now?” Draco asked casually, acutely aware of the vice-like grip he had on his quill.

Harry grinned even broader, green eyes staring into grey, and then he was leaning forward, one hand, holding a silver and grey tie, braced against the table and the other slipping into Draco’s hair. Somewhere to their right, somebody inhaled sharply, but Draco never broke eye contact.

And then Harry’s lips were on his ever so gently, barely even there and completely appropriate for a first kiss in a quiet library on a sunny Friday afternoon.

“Guess he can,” Draco agreed.

And when he kissed him again, it wasn’t all that quiet anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment to tell me what you thought about this ( or just drop your favourite emoji)! :)  
> You can also check out my other fic [Where The Falcons Fly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129308/chapters/55345891). It's entirely finished and I'm uploading daily.  
> Thank you!


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